Faulty cool-suit brings Ellery to boiling point.

Steven Ellery battled on at round four of the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship with a cool suit failure affecting the Super Cheap Auto Racing driver in Sunday morning's second V8 Supercar race at Hidden Valley.

After starting from grid position 20, Ellery made up a number of positions in the opening phases of the 35-lap race and as cabin temperatures soared above 50 degrees Celsius the Super Cheap Auto Racing Driver struggled to cope in the malfunctioning cool suit. As the race wore on Ellery faded and eventually finished an exhausted 26th.

Steven Ellery battled on at round four of the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship with a cool suit failure affecting the Super Cheap Auto Racing driver in Sunday morning's second V8 Supercar race at Hidden Valley.

After starting from grid position 20, Ellery made up a number of positions in the opening phases of the 35-lap race and as cabin temperatures soared above 50 degrees Celsius the Super Cheap Auto Racing Driver struggled to cope in the malfunctioning cool suit. As the race wore on Ellery faded and eventually finished an exhausted 26th.

"Within the first few laps it became apparent that my cool suit wasn't working properly and from there on it was a battle to the end," Ellery said.

"While the start of this morning's race looked very promising, I just couldn't push it any further than I did."

With the third race looming, Ellery made the decision to not wear the cool suit in the 35 lap final on Sunday afternoon.

"I had no choice but to not wear the cool suit in the final race. If I did I would have just cooked once again," Ellery stated.

"There was an element of risk in not wearing the suit and I was worried about getting hotter but in fact the opposite occurred and I felt much cooler throughout the race and recovered better at the end."

Ellery did perform better without the cool suit and after starting from grid position 25 was 18th when the chequered flag fell.

"I felt so much better without the suit and it was certainly apparent in my performance with the Super Cheap Auto Racing Falcon finishing seven positions higher than my starting position," Ellery commented.

"I was able to hold position a lot easier and focus my attention on the race finish and not making any costly mistakes."

Despite finishing 21st overall and remaining 30th in the 2004 V8 Supercar Championship, Ellery remains philosophical about the next round of the series at Barbagallo in Perth on the 11 - 13 June 2004.

"It is really hard to get your head around this weekend, while we produced some really competitive times we were still 26th in qualifying and that is certainly where you don't expect to be when you are less than a second off the pole time," Ellery said.

"The competitiveness within the category has stepped up again and hopefully we will be able to go testing between now and Perth and get a bit of an edge over the other teams.

"Our last test session was before the Grand Prix support program and with a few crashes and a few new staff members it will be critical to do some miles outside of a race situation to help things gel back together once again."

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